During drilling and upon completion and production of an oil and/or gas wellbore, a workover and/or completion tubular string can be installed in the wellbore to allow for production of oil and/or gas from the well. Some tubular strings can include multiple wellbore tubulars arranged in an approximately concentric or co-axial alignment with an inner wellbore tubular disposed within the center of an outer wellbore tubular. Such orientations can allow for multiple production paths between a zone of interest in the wellbore and the surface. In some instances this arrangement may allow for production of oil and/or gas from multiple zones of interest in a single wellbore without the need to comingle the fluids during transport to the surface. The arrangement of multiple wellbore tubulars in co-axial alignment may be used in a variety of processes.
The co-axial arrangement of wellbore tubulars may have several drawbacks. For example, relative movement between two or more wellbore tubulars may cause friction and wear on the tubular walls. In some instances, one or more tools associated with the wellbore tubulars may experience wear due to contact during the relative movement, which may result in expensive workovers to repair and/or replace the components. As another example, seals may be used to isolate various flow paths within the tubular strings. The seals are generally designed to form a static engagement between two surfaces, and the relative movement of the sealing surfaces may result in damage to the seal, which may lead to leakage and/or eventual failure of the seal.